In these days of Snapchat image dumps and iCloud photo hacks, selfie-snappers and sexters are looking for safer ways to share their images. To that end, Obscure (free) offers unprecedented control over messages by letting either the sender or recipient delete images or messages and have them vanish from both phones. It also includes titillating, interactive filters—including a big zipper—that let senders control their messages in new ways. But Obscure lives up to its name with a confusing interface and uneven performance that outweighs whatever value it might provide.

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Setup and Design Obscure asks to be connected to your Google+ account through Google Play's game leaderboard system, of all things. It asks for quite a bit of access, such as making your activity public, but the permissions are easily editable. You also have to enter your age and whether you are male or female, which I find surprising and unnecessary, considering it's already hooked into a social network.

Like Snapchat and Slingshot, you start out from the camera screen. Unsurprisingly, it's automatically in forward-facing mode, ready to snap a selfie. You swipe left and right to access other screens, but it's not always clear what these screens actually do. It took me quite a while to figure out which of these was my inbox. On a few occasions, I found myself unable to access my inbox simply because the app would not let me swipe to it.

The interface is fairly clean looking, but it's not always coherent. Obscure has lots of features, and sifting through them all is challenging. It can, for example, take the text entered into the message field and return what appears to be an Internet image search for that phrase. I don't find this a particularly useful feature, but the search button is so close to the send button that I ended up testing this feature extensively, to my frustration.

Unzip an ImageObscure has filters, but it won't let you adjust the contrast or apply a bokeh effect like Instagram. It will, however, hide your salacious selfie behind a zipper or what appears to be a steamy shower door. All eight of Obscure's filters are interactive, giving your recipient the chance to, for example, wipe the steam off a section of the picture or unzip the image. One filter wreaths your likeness in flames which can be briefly quelled by—no joke—blowing on the phone's microphone.

I feel like these filters, and indeed many of Obscure's other features, seemed designed for something in particular. But I'm not sure what. Something to do with secrets, zippers, steam, and heat. Maybe trading and storing recipes? Oh well.

Some filters are not just interactive, but resilient. You can wipe off the condensation that hides an image, but it quickly returns. You can set how much of your images these filters reveal, or even remove interactive elements, but it's not explained very well. For example, the sender can define how far down the zipper can go. Recipients can request senders enable the interactive elements, or even an unobstructed version of the image.

You can also doodle on an image in 12 different colors, but with only one nib size. Slingshot, for all its faults, actually handled image doodling brilliantly. Additional image embellishments include numerous resizable stickers. Video is, for now, not part of Obscure's repertoire, putting it a disadvantage to most other messengers.

In addition to sending photos, Obscure also lets you chat via text. You can even somewhat obscure this text with an automatic scrambler that only reveals the words when the message is tapped. It's a neat idea, but Obscure only scrambles the letters within words os si't ervy seay ot dear. Confide does a much better job of hiding messages.

Take Back the Selfie The most intriguing feature of Obscure is its ability to delete images and text messages from both the sender's and recipient's devices. Just swipe and it's gone. This is markedly different than Wickr and Snapchat, where messages and images are deleted after a set period of time. Obscure also blocks screenshots of messages and images.

I was surprised that swiping away a message sometimes pulled up a prompt offering to let me forward messages. Some apps like Mailbox offer different actions for full or incomplete swipes, but I wasn't able to find the method behind Obscure's madness.

Most messages and images are swiftly deleted. Even if the recipient is viewing an image full-screen, they'll be kicked out. However, I did encounter some situations where deleting a message on one phone did not remove it from the other phone. This was likely a connectivity issue, but it does point out that a recipient has only to keep their phone offline to prevent images from being deleted. Obscure should provide an error message when a message or photo is not successfully removed from both devices.

SecurityI reached out to Obscure's developers to get a better understanding of how messages were secured. They said that Obscure uses SSL through Google's App Engine to protect users' identity. That's a good start, but security apps like Wickr use OTR to encrypt every message and to ensure that even if one message's encryption is broken, the rest remain secure.

Beyond encryption, I have other security concerns with Obscure. For example, the app requires no password or user name to sign up and uses Google+ to manage accounts. That's convenient, but it also lacks anonymity. I was also surprised to find that I could only search for other Obscure users by using real names, not using email addresses. Finding people to send messages to through Obscure turned out to be, well, obscure.

Early in its life, Snapchat came under fire for not deleting messages from their servers. Thankfully, Obscure does not seem to be making the same mistake. The developers tell me that the messages are only stored on Obscure's servers until they are delivered to the recipient's device, after which they are deleted.

Too Obscure Obscure's interactive filters are harmless fun, and I'm sure there are people who will love them. But the app's poor design, uneven performance, and confusing sign-up and friending process leave me disappointed. Obscure simply does not deliver enough unique interactions to make up for its frustration.

That said, I really do like the ability to destroy messages and images on command. Even the settings for how much of an image the recipient can see were intriguing and unique to Obscure. Other messengers should really look to include these kind of controls in their apps. But the count-down to destruction used in Snapchat and its ilk is far better at ensuring that a message is actually destroyed.

For sending messages, both secret and otherwise, I'll stick with more polished offerings like Google Hangouts, or Editors' Choice winners Viber and Wickr.

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About the Author

Max Eddy is a Software Analyst, taking a critical eye to the Android OS and security services. He's also PCMag's foremost authority on weather stations and digital scrapbooking software. He spends much of his time polishing his tinfoil hat and plumbing the depths of the Dark Web.
Prior to PCMag, Max wrote for the International Digital Times, The... See Full Bio

Obscure (for Android)

Obscure (for Android)

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